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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22863583">Staying Our Hand From Madness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia'>Taste_of_Suburbia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>an unquiet mind [20]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>From Paris with Love (2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Acceptance, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Creatures &amp; Monsters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst, Case Fic, Depression, Established Relationship, Family, Fear, Fix-It, Friendship, Guilt, Heart-to-Heart, Hiding in Plain Sight, Hunters &amp; Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Murder, In Another Man's Shoes, M/M, POV Multiple, Paranoia, Partners to Lovers, Prophetic Visions, Regret, Resentment, Romance, Self-blaming, Strained Friendships, Strained Relationships, Trope Bingo Round 14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:00:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,757</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22863583</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Wax gets a taste of the blasphemous and forbidden.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Reece/Charlie Wax</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>an unquiet mind [20]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1400899</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Staying Our Hand From Madness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/47728.html">Trope Bingo</a> for the prompt In Another Man’s Shoes. I’ve been wanting to play around with Wax (temporarily) getting Reece’s visions and this is the perfect prompt for it. </p><p>Back story: This follows <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20818400">All These Punishments</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22846888">Lead Us to Destructive Behavior.</a> If desired, you can skip over the 3rd part <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22847629">Beckoning Unreasonable Fury</a>, since it’s merely an AU of Lead Us to Destructive Behavior. </p><p><em>Recounting this mini-series within my main series:</em> Reece has a simple, harmless thought to ask for his prophetic visions to go away. The universe, fate, what have you gives him what he wants, but also sticks him in a time loop where he has to watch Wax die in hundreds of gruesome ways. Eventually, the time loop stops but Reece starts having visions again, except that in this alternate reality psychics have long since been hunted down by the very agency he works for. Wax finds out that his partner is not the same partner he’s known and, while initially thrown, decides to stand by him and go against everything he’s always believed. </p><p><strong>In this 4th part,</strong> Wax gets a taste of Reece’s visions and is forced to swallow the bitter pill of guilt, all the while riding the waves of glory and ecstasy. </p><p><strong>Miniseries [part 4]:</strong> All these punishments lead us to destructive behavior, beckoning unreasonable fury, staying our hand from madness so we can fight another season and poison the source</p><p><strong>Series:</strong> an unquiet mind</p><p><strong>Soundtrack:</strong> Lyrics are from Mars Argo’s ‘Wasting Away’</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>~Wasted away again</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your words dripping down my head</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Comfort makes me sick again</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And I’m sick, I’m sad, I’m mad</em>
</p><p>
  <em>On and off and on with you~</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Reece </span>
  <em>hated </em>
  <span>putting Wax in this position, day after day, forced to live a life of secrets and of lies, forced to surrender his beliefs and his once unshakable trust in their employer, forced to choose his partner every single day, forced to hide Reece and accept him and secure a future for him in doing so. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there was nothing for it because if they </span>
  <em>both </em>
  <span>wanted to stay alive, they had to pretend. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was too much pretending for Wax though, taking into account how he hadn’t once touched Reece since finding out about the visions, at least, not in the way a lover would. Except for that hug, when he had embraced Reece after seriously coming close to killing him, but it seemed so long ago and neither had really been in their </span>
  <em>best </em>
  <span>frame of mind, so to Reece it didn’t count. </span>
</p><p>Sometimes he’d grab Reece’s arm and pull him out of a room, or tap his back impatiently if Reece stayed lost in his head for too long, but there was resentment in every word he spoke and in every action he took.</p><p>And Reece didn’t know how much longer he could live like this.</p><p>
  <span>Even if the alternative wasn’t living </span>
  <em>at all. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Even though he’d been miraculously vision-less for all of three cases, he could tell how it was setting Wax on edge rather than having the more desirable opposite effect. Truth be told, Reece was on pins and needles waiting too but then at least he intimately </span>
  <em>knew</em>
  <span> what he was waiting on, knew the searing burn and the shortness of breath, the sensation of being strangled, ropes cutting into his neck and wrists, the salty tang of blood coating his lips and his scalp sticky with it, shoulder throbbing its own beat, knuckles bruised and feet scraped up to shreds and sanity hanging on its very last thread…</span>
</p><p>Wax would just watch him blink out, vacant eyes, held breath, his own motionless, pliant, rag-doll partner until he recovered and his face and body crumpled from the last vestiges of memory.</p><p>Unlike Reece’s previous life, Wax was always the one to turn away, allowing Reece a few sparse seconds to collect himself before switching back to real life, as if it was Reece’s fault for robbing Wax of that each time, Reece’s fault for not remaining in the present when he was forcibly, not of his own will, disconnected. Reece’s fault for forcing Wax into this lie, this shadow life, where he could look forward to nothing but that Wax might warm back up to him eventually.</p><p>As it had taken Reece all that time to warm up to his own Wax back in his long gone but never forgotten original reality.</p><p>
  <span>Wax wasn’t thawing even a bit though, not when Reece tried to talk about the visions, not when Reece purposely ignored that the visions even existed, not when the visions had been gone for weeks and they could </span>
  <em>almost</em>
  <span> call their life normal again, if Wax had even tried just a </span>
  <em>bit. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>If Reece wasn’t so busy biting back the fear, </span>
  <em>waiting, </em>
  <span>he’d be nothing but </span>
  <em>infuriated. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Inch by painstaking inch, Reece started to drift off like a boat untethered, fed up with the waiting as long as he could just </span>
  <em>sleep</em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>Wax was at this moment tapping out an annoying beat on the coffee table, but it wasn’t difficult to tune out. The couch was uncomfortable and the position Reece had put himself in even more so, not that he’d had much of a choice since he was sharing the small space, but he was too tired and stressed and nervous to cross the room in front of Wax, barely his partner and once his lover, to lay down on their actual bed.</p><p><span>One, Wax would resent it since he still had yet to share the bed and flat out refused to sleep on the couch. Two, it would be admitting that Reece was too tired to even try</span> <span>and that was</span><em> exactly</em><span> what he was blaming Wax for not doing. Three, his head hurt and his stomach hurt and since Wax didn’t have it in him to pity him even a little, cue a hand massaging his scalp or shifting so Reece could stretch out more or even turning the frostiness down just a degree, Reece was entitled to an ounce of self-pity, thank you very much. </span></p><p>“You wanna try that new Mexican joint couple’a blocks from here?”</p><p>Reece jerked awake, head rising from where it had rested in the crook of his elbow. This was the fifth straight case they were on and he was overwhelmed, desiring some quiet time to actually get his head together. He could tell Wax needed some distance as well which was why, starving though he was, he bit his tongue and shook his head in denial.</p><p>“<span>Fine then.” Wax stood abruptly, hurriedly pulling his jacket on and the door already open before Reece could react. </span><em>Something </em><span>made him turn back though, making Reece wonder whether their partnership, because he couldn’t even </span><em>think </em><span>about the state or possible recovery of their relationship, wasn’t a lost cause after all. “I’ll meet you back here in an hour or two.”</span></p><p>Reece nodded and it seemed that was the final word for Wax to leave, dragging a piece of Reece’s heart with him.</p>
<hr/><p>He knew he was being hard on Reece when he didn’t deserve it but he honestly didn’t care.</p><p>
  <em>Everything has changed. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t just Reece either, a Reece that suddenly decided to have visions, premonitions that Wax could no sooner accept than he could trust in. His whole belief system had been challenged, everything he had ever worked for and fought for and honest to god </span>
  <em>bled </em>
  <span>for. The agency couldn’t know about the visions, couldn’t know about Reece because they would never accept him, and Wax wasn’t sure he could accept him either. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a terrible thing to think, </span>
  <em>he </em>
  <span>was a terrible partner for ever having considered killing Reece by his own hand, but nothing about following those visions was morally right. They were a sign of the devil if ever there was one. Wax couldn’t be considered a religious man by </span>
  <em>any </em>
  <span>means, but there were lines he would never cross, ways of thinking that he would never lower himself to. Corruptions of the soul that he would never </span>
  <em>ever </em>
  <span>submit to. </span>
</p><p>One thing he could never do, however, was turn Reece over to the agency; death would be quicker and kinder.</p><p>It would be a form of betrayal that not even his belief in the agency and in the ways of the world and of nature could rattle.</p><p>
  <span>So it was either kill Reece or kill all the parts of himself he had depended upon and clung to for the entirety of his life. It wasn’t so easy to change one’s line of thinking though, wasn’t so easy to just be with Reece in the moment and be grateful that he had a partner he honest to god loved, considering all this new baggage he’d </span>
  <em>long</em>
  <span> since coaxed out of his own and perhaps long gone Reece, considering the true weight of what Reece was carrying and hiding from the world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he did the only thing he could do: keep his head down and mouth shut and try to push Reece away as much as possible without </span>
  <em>actually </em>
  <span>pushing him away. The little they gleaned from Reece’s abominable insights and the even smaller amount of information Wax agreed to use he was able to fudge well enough in their reports, giving the agency no reason to pay closer attention and start asking questions. They were careful, so damn careful that it irritated Wax all the more because of all this extra hassle he had to put himself through, all the covering up and finding alternate, </span>
  <em>legitimate</em>
  <span> ways to get information they already had, all the bullshit…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wax didn’t realize how truly petty he was being though until he realized he </span>
  <em>hated </em>
  <span>eating alone. </span>
</p><p>He’d taken a booth out of habit without even factoring in that Reece wasn’t with him. Eating his massive protein-laden platter of beef and cheese and beans wasn’t nearly as enticing and fun without Reece there, rolling his eyes and huffing at his less than proper eating habits. They’d talk about the case they were working on or struggling with, bouncing ideas off each other, or they’d talk about a thousand other things: what color to paint their living room, reasons not to get a bigger flat screen TV, whether to chance trying that new Chinese buffet joint, what book Reece was trudging through in his hundred books a year list, what new sex position Wax wanted to dabble in…</p><p>Then again, none of those things he could talk about with Reece anymore.</p><p>
  <span>This was a Reece from an entirely different world, a world he had revealed he and his Wax had only </span>
  <em>just </em>
  <span>gotten together in, a world where they hadn’t painted the walls of their apartment or discussed trivial things like books or furnishings. This was a Reece who still had petty concerns and reservations that held him back. </span>
</p><p>That Wax must have been a saint to sit on the sidelines and wait for Reece to catch up.</p><p>
  <span>Wax wasn’t used to sitting around and waiting for </span>
  <em>anything. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, the silence was pronounced, the only sound him chewing food that tasted bland and he couldn’t delude himself into thinking that it was the </span>
  <em>actual </em>
  <span>food and not just </span>
  <em>him. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Had he gotten </span>
  <em>that </em>
  <span>attached to Reece? Even </span>
  <em>this </em>
  <span>Reece? </span>
</p><p>Did he even have to ask the question?</p><p>Wax sighed, dropped his fork and glowered in the realization that he was really the only one who could fix this.</p><p>And then, as if that realization had opened something inside him that triggered what was to come, a sharp white pinpoint of pain exploded at the base of his skull and crawled its way inward, taking him somewhere he shuddered to imagine.</p>
<hr/><p>The door slammed and Reece jumped, putting the spoon he had been idly stirring his coffee with down on a napkin and slowly rising from the chair he had been practically dozing in. “Wax?”</p><p>“Reece!” A panicked voice cut in, freezing Reece in place as his partner swept into the kitchen, eyes wild and almost fever bright, shaved head glistening with sweat, panting as if he had run all the way back here. Reece recognized the look all too well, even though there could be no possible way…</p><p>“<span>I saw her, the missing girl,” Wax explained to Reece’s questioning, suspicious stare. “She’s in that abandoned theater on the corner of Palm and Maple. You kept talking about that wallpaper and I didn’t even </span><em>think…</em><span>”</span></p><p>He had been talking about more than that antique wallpaper that coated every wall of his dreams, not that Wax paid attention to much of anything he said. There were thick cobwebs too, undisturbed by wind or rain, dusty chandeliers locked in place by those same cobwebs as if frozen in time, their sparkling light having dimmed ages past. Granted, he hadn’t thought of the old theater either, which hadn’t been opened and thus, hadn’t seen the light of day for near on a century. Most believed it was structurally unsound and even haunted, yet it was historic nonetheless, a tarnished beacon of the golden days of the past.</p><p>
  <span>Reece </span>
  <em>had </em>
  <span>been preoccupied lately, however, with Wax shutting down his own theories practically before he could give them necessary voice. </span>
</p><p>“<span>You see it too, don’t you?” Wax wondered before Reece could get another word in. “That brain of yours just never quits, does it? Spinning on that endlessly rotating wheel. Pain doesn’t stop it, light doesn’t stop it, it just goes on and on for miles, yards and yards of disjointed memories that aren’t even yours but </span><em>are </em><span>because you’re witnessing them, living them, breathing them in like a poison. A poison you </span><em>have </em><span>to breathe in, to solve this, to make it to her…”</span></p><p>
  <span>The way Wax was talking… it was rambling and Wax did </span>
  <em>not </em>
  <span>ramble. He was too cool and confident to rattle off into tangents about things that barely made sense, or at least made sense to Reece, which didn’t count. </span>
</p><p>Reece stared at his coffee but not in the way that he needed more caffeine, just to help himself concentrate in a way that wasn’t staring dazedly at Wax. He hadn’t had a vision in what… three weeks time? A little more? The images had carried over into his dreams, yes, but nothing more.</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t plausible but if Reece had learned one thing these last few months, it was that </span>
  <em>anything </em>
  <span>concerning the visions was possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glanced back up at an oddly </span>
  <em>excited </em>
  <span>Wax? “Wax, you don’t… you can’t…, I mean… what do you…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His partner rushed forward and gripped his shoulders, nearly sending Reece stumbling back in alarm. “But you </span>
  <em>never </em>
  <span>talk about the rush, Reece. It’s </span>
  <em>incredible. </em>
  <span>I feel so alive, so invincible, like I’m the only one that can carry this through. It’s like having this God complex, feeling this power course through you, kick-starting everything that’s important to life: reaction time, reflexes, brain power, it’s all just there at your fingertips, all that extra strength and stamina, an adrenaline you </span>
  <em>know </em>
  <span>won’t run out until this is through. It’s a curse, you </span>
  <em>know </em>
  <span>it’s a curse, but it’s a goddamn </span>
  <em>gift </em>
  <span>right now is what it is.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reece wanted to tell Wax that he was freaking him out, no, </span>
  <em>scaring </em>
  <span>him, but he doubted it would sound sympathetic so he bit it off. </span>
</p><p>If this was the bridge that would bring them closer together, so be it.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Wax rode on the waves of glorious self-importance through finding her, through beating and subduing and finally handcuffing her assailant, through the paramedics arriving, through Reece standing just out of arm’s reach, peering at him as if he believed he could hide his curiosity yet wariness from Wax. He’d rarely seen Reece this quiet and yet intense, shoulders tense and set to bolt, the strain between them just as physical as it was mental. Wax had a suspicion, no, </span>
  <em>knew </em>
  <span>that he reacted the same every time Reece came down from a vision too jarring to hide, but very little mattered to him with the surge of prophecy coursing through his veins and the giddiness of accomplishment now that he had seen the job through. </span>
</p><p>Of course, he had to come down from the high sometime.</p><p>The memories started splintering almost as soon as their almost victim was loaded into the ambulance and carted away. Most of them crumpled to bits, exploding inside the fragile confines of his skull, but some he swallowed down like jagged pieces of wood, piercing his throat as they sank into his stomach, pain pricking his elbows and knees, the fleshy underside of his arms, the sensitive spots at the back of his neck…</p><p>
  <span>He completely lost control, didn’t even realize it until he came to on his knees, fingernails pulling away from the marks they had left on the sides of his head, eyes burning with tears as soon as they opened, peering up from the trash and weed strewn ground and into Reece’s own wide, bright, hesitant, </span>
  <em>beautiful</em>
  <span> eyes, dripping with remorse and yet irritation at its existence. </span>
</p><p>Wax’s hand reached for him, opting to feel sun warmed skin rather than dry grass or rough concrete. Reece allowed the contact, the relief rushing through Wax a clear sign of how worried he had been, of how far he believed he had pushed Reece away for no reason at all.</p><p>
  <span>He reveled in the subdued victory of that moment because the visions were gone and with them their attempts to split his head into a dozen dripping fragments, because they were heroes and he could give a damn about their reports or the agency right now, because Reece was real and adorably unsure and so goddamn handsome, and Wax knew that hidden inside he was full and glowing with love and patience and promise and loyalty and he was the only thing that mattered, that made any of it, </span>
  <em>all </em>
  <span>of life worthwhile.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>The guilt was the next thing to come.</p><p>
  <span>It twisted its way into every word and thought and action, every time he reached out to touch Reece in some meaningful way only to realize that he didn’t know </span>
  <em>how </em>
  <span>to do it anymore, each time he tried to exchange mundane words on trivial topics only for Reece to stare right through him, disconnected, traces of accusation and disinterest shot like bullets into his blistered heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The visions had been an experience he couldn’t give a definitive description of. Everything he had </span>
  <em>felt</em>
  <span>, even a flicker, had been amplified tenfold; every thought he had suddenly became interconnected with every other, sewn together to make a perfect patchwork of humanity; and every good intention held no flawed design nor fueled any self-doubt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>More than that, he felt like had been serving a </span>
  <em>purpose. </em>
</p><p>Maybe he had been so enamored with it because he had spent his life chasing every high, only when necessary, and every experience, only when he could get away with it. Those visions had been the ultimate high, being attuned to everything around you almost to the point of oversensitivity.</p><p>He remembered Reece saying it had worn him down, wondered how many years he had dealt with it and it made sense: every drug brought you to the boiling point eventually.</p><p>And maybe that was what it took to make him realize that he had to make it right.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>It wasn’t that Reece was jealous, jealous that he wasn’t the one disjointed from reality, crippled by confusion and desperation and </span>
  <em>pain</em>
  <span>, all degrees, all types, all-consuming. It wasn’t that he looked at Wax and found it impossible to be sympathetic or apologetic. He just… felt </span>
  <em>unwanted. </em>
  <span>Sure, the world was all bright and alright when Wax was seeing things that had once been the devil’s handiwork in his eyes, but it might as well have been end-times when the universe was subjecting Reece to the same fate. </span>
</p><p>He was angry, upset, disillusioned and bitter, mostly bitter, so bitter it became the taste of constancy in his mouth, what he swallowed and breathed in every passing second.</p><p>Life had become so bitter he had started to choke on it.</p><p>Maybe he should be grateful that his partner finally seemed to understand, but there was a part of him that knew Wax could never understand. He would never grasp the misery and the hopelessness, the slow detachment from reality so inevitable it was more than anxiety inducing.</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t a gift, it was a </span>
  <em>curse, </em>
  <span>but that line of thinking had already </span>
  <em>gotten </em>
  <span>Reece into trouble. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was idly flipping through TV channels when Wax sauntered through the front door, slightly more deflated than usual since he had been granted his </span>
  <em>gift. </em>
  <span>Reece ignored him; Wax typically got the first word in </span>
  <em>any </em>
  <span>conversation. “Well, I haven’t had the visions in a week and a half, so I think it’s safe to say they’re gone,” he announced. Who the hell knew what he expected Reece to say? Congrats, sorry, do I </span>
  <em>really </em>
  <span>fucking care? </span>
</p><p>Regardless, Reece swallowed down a panic he knew could not be quenched, knowing the waiting game had now been initialized.</p><p>
  <span>Mostly though, Reece wasn’t too sure how exactly </span>
  <em>gone </em>
  <span>Wax’s visions were, given Reece could go weeks without them sometimes. And yet it did make sense to him in some strange way that fate or the universe or whatever was responsible for them was trying to teach Wax a lesson and, since he learned it the first time around, it didn’t need to be repeated. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It still filled Reece with petty jealousy though, given that he was </span>
  <em>still </em>
  <span>being forced to live his lesson. </span>
</p><p>“Good news for you, huh?” Wax joked. “Now I can let you have some of the credit back.” Reece wondered if he’d ever wanted to punch Wax as much as he wanted to now, barring the moment they’d met. He wasn’t the violent type and yet… Wax could always get a rise out of him, could always test his patience, breaking down every single one of his barriers until Reece had no strength to build up anymore, or any reasons to.</p><p>He could feel Wax standing directly behind him, close enough to make his skin itch, close enough that he had to remind himself to stay in the lower spectrum of irritability, not straying into the area where he was more prone to blow up.</p><p>“<span>Reece? Seriously, you good?” And Reece honestly didn’t know what that even </span><em>meant </em><span>anymore; would he </span><em>ever </em><span>be good? How could he not miss Wax the way he had known him: the dirty, sleaze-ball things he would say at times to get him riled up; and how other times he would say the softest, most comforting words to pull him down from the tower he was dangling precariously from. </span></p><p>How could he not miss what he had, not knowing whether he’d ever have it again?</p><p>
  <span>It was exhausting working his way back up, getting to a point of his relationship with Wax where he felt comfortable. It was exhausting just </span>
  <em>being </em>
  <span>here, not knowing what was going to come next and whether he’d be prepared for it when it did, not knowing how much more he could put Wax through before it was just too much. </span>
</p><p>Wax was still staring at him, expectant in a way he’d never been before. Reece was used to his concern but not like this, knowing that Wax had not so long ago viewed his visions as sinful enough to put a bullet in his head and maybe… a part of him still did.</p><p>
  <span>Reece could answer him, could spew useless words but what was the point? He was tired of trying, trying to fit back into Wax’s good graces and in this world it was really for the </span>
  <em>first </em>
  <span>time. He was tired of trying to keep all this stuff from Wax when he could barely keep it together in his own head. He was just </span>
  <em>tired </em>
  <span>of trying to stay a step ahead, trying not to be seen too much or heard too much, trying to live in this world where </span>
  <em>yes, I have visions but no, I really can’t because if I do Wax will get pissed and look at me like I’m some freak of nature…</em>
</p><p>“<span>I’m going to go lay down,” he settled on, slinking out of the room, out of Wax making some half-assed effort to get them on the same page when they weren’t even in the same </span><em>book </em><span>anymore. </span></p><p>
  <span>Wax, of course, because why would this Wax be any different, had to have the </span>
  <em>last</em>
  <span> word too. “You asked me if I felt anything at all for those psychics… those </span>
  <em>people</em>
  <span> I killed.” And Reece stopped, waiting for some ridiculous justification like the last time. “I didn’t know them, Reece, and they were my targets so I didn’t think I should care… but I did.” Reece’s hand curled on the doorknob, wondering whether to slam the door in his partner’s face, wondering whether to </span>
  <em>really </em>
  <span>trust in Wax or just trust his lies for appearance sake because he was just too tired to argue. Wax must have sensed his uneasiness, reaching out a hand to touch him but never making contact, which was good since Reece hadn’t given him </span>
  <em>permission</em>
  <span>. “I’m not the monster you were trying to make me out to be. Maybe I’m not your Wax, maybe I am your Wax at some future point in time, but none of it really matters ‘cause I’m the only Wax you’ve got.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It sounded so simple, so </span>
  <em>stupidly</em>
  <span> simple. It was like that last shred of control had been scraped away. </span>
  <em>This is all you’ve got so </em>
  <span>deal </span>
  <em>with it. Stop being a </em>
  <span>child </span>
  <em>and be a man and take whatever burnt, mangled olive branch Wax is extending to you. Take it because you don’t have a </em>
  <span>choice. </span>
</p><p>This was the only version of Wax he had: less than endearing, far less predictable, more than anything else this world could offer.</p><p>
  <em>And I’m the only Reece he’s got. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It was true: they had each other, </span>
  <em>only </em>
  <span>each other, until they didn’t anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t perfect, it was </span>
  <em>far </em>
  <span>from perfect, but nothing in Reece’s life had been or ever would be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reece’s fingernails dug into the wall, bracing himself, but was it really too much to ask? Would it really be worth it in the end to shut Wax out now; wouldn’t he just end up regretting it later? Wasn’t that what Wax had done? Wasn’t he </span>
  <em>better </em>
  <span>than that? “You okay, Wax?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>No, no I’m not. All that time you were having those visions. All that time I didn’t even </span><em>try </em><span>to understand.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Reece froze, fingernails retreating from the plaster. “Yeah well, they’re </span>
  <em>kinda </em>
  <span>hard to describe, or understand,” he answered, opting for a light approach. Things had been too heavy and too dark between them for too long, and even though he was </span>
  <em>far </em>
  <span>from forgiving Wax he was inclined to try anyway. Gaging the distance between them now, he turned toward his partner, sensing that Wax was closer to him now than he’d ever been, at least in this world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In response, Wax stepped forward until the physical space between them was hardly worth measuring. “The other me…,” Wax’s hand reached out again, brushing Reece’s arm, massaging up and down and </span>
  <em>up and up</em>
  <span> until he reached his shoulder, cupping his chin lightly as a thumb swept across Reece’s cheekbone. Reece had always longed for intimacy outside of sex and he had become a </span>
  <em>pro</em>
  <span> at pushing it away. He bristled at the touch but at least he didn’t flinch; maybe that was what kept Wax hanging on. “What kinds of things would he do?”</span>
</p><p>Reece cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Um… well, different things. Nothing that specific really.”</p><p>Wax’s hand slid back down to his shoulder, coarse fingers massaging the side of his neck, pushing Reece’s hand away. “Different things like what?” He practically purred, coaxing Reece to open up, insisting Reece soften until he would be little more than a marshmallow.</p><p>
  <span>And oh boy, did Reece regret saying that now. </span>
  <em>Might as well come out with it. </em>
  <span>“He’d give me massages, li… like now. And he’d hold me up if I lost my balance. Made sure I ate enough, stayed inside if the light was hurting my eyes too much, slept even if it was an hour here or there. Sometimes he’d just get me high or drunk too. Not that often and not once I realized what was happening, but I guess he saved it for those times it got really bad. Those times </span>
  <em>I </em>
  <span>got really bad.” He inhaled sharply, having rushed through most of it and, despite his better judgment, finally met his partner’s intent stare, something pricking irritatingly at his eyes. “He just… took care of me.” Simple as that, so simple Reece had never thought about what he was doing or why. </span>
</p><p>It seemed to please Wax, who pulled a much more pliant Reece into his arms, one hopefully open to forgiveness. Reece remained compliant, more than capable of handing his partner an anchor to the world if he needed it, even at the expense of his own protective, crumbling wall.</p><p>“<span>Then that’s what I’ll do.” Wax buried his face in the crook of his neck, causing Reece to startle and brace his hands on Wax’s sturdy, unmovable shoulders. He </span><em>almost </em><span>pushed back until he remembered that Wax had never </span><em>once </em><span>subjected him to the same, at least, the Wax he had known and loved and given up for no good reason at all, without ever seeing it coming. Every time he had needed </span><em>that </em><span>Wax, </span><em>his </em><span>Wax, he had been</span> <span>there physically </span><em>and </em><span>emotionally through and through. </span></p><p>“<span>Alright, Wax,” he reasoned, the only answer he could offer while his partner clung unashamedly to him, uncharacteristic but somehow </span><em>still </em><span>Wax. </span><em>I guess I’ll hold you to that then. </em></p><p>
  <b>FIN</b>
</p>
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